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Arms linked, thoughts linked
One person in two bodies

š– ‹š– ‹

They crack the same jokes,
They sing the same songs

It's difficult to belong
Among people that are linked

š– ‹š– ‹  š– ‹

But today, you took my arm in yours,
Adjoined me to your chain

Today I felt like one of you—
If only for a little while

š– ‹š– ‹š– ‹
It's difficult to become friends with people who already know each other well. Last week they linked arms with each other and today they linked arms with me too. It made me so happy. (Tried a new thing with the symbols, let me know your thoughts!)
AJ Jun 8
I crave the change I also dread,
It dances loud inside my head
For when you’ve lived in chains so long,
They start to feel like where you belong

They bind me tight, they hold me still,
They crush my voice, they break my will,
But in their grip, I’ve come to stay,
And fear the world without their sway

What would I do, if I were free?
No walls, no locks, no weight on me?
This place, though cold, I’ve come to know,
It shaped my steps, it taught me ā€œno.ā€

My dreams keep whispering through the dark,
But even dreams have lost their spark
For even there, I fear the cost,
Afraid to find what I have lost

I long for joy, yet flinch from light,
I watch it glowing, clear and bright,
But I’ve lived so long in shadow’s arms,
The sun, to me, might do me harm

How can I walk with eyes so gray,
Into a gold and blinding day?
Without the chains to pull me back,
What compass guides the open track?

What rules exist when none remain?
What shape is joy that’s born from pain?
And so I stay, both near and far,
A prisoner who guards their own bar
Sometimes I ask myself, "Who are you?
Do you know where you truly belong?
Why can’t you shine as brightly as others do?
Why aren’t you as beautiful as your mom?
Why do you forget where you came from?
You can barely walk, yet you want to run.
If this darkness never fades, why do you still long for the sun?
Why reach for the sky when you’ve never learned to fly?
Why try to bring joy to others when your own world feels so dry?
I don’t know the right answers,
But I want to read every chapter.
I don’t know if I will ever shine,
But I will try my best to make the impossible mine.
It's okay to have questions about your own capability. But don't give up and keep trying.
Ian Starks Jun 21
The box said
ā€˜1,000 pieces’
Yet the picture is complete.

I watch from the lid—
unfitted.

There was never room
for 1,001.
Sanu Sharma Jun 7
With a bit of mud upon their peak
a pair of tiny birds ventured into our abode.
I asked my mother, tinged with excitement
ā€œMother! Why have they graced our home?ā€

ā€œTo craft their dwelling,ā€ replied Mother.

My childhood routine altered—
to oversee the endeavors of those winged beings
and witness the splendid nest they shaped.

Then came the day when Mother uttered,
ā€œThe swallows have birthed their offspring.ā€

Swiftly,
the fledglings matured, mastering the art of flight
and on one uncertain day
they soared away from the nest
yet didn’t return.

My heart echoed the emptiness
of the now-deserted nest.

Mother sighed and shared,
ā€œIt appears, the fledglings have departed their nests.ā€

Weary of my persistent inquiries
regarding the rationale behind their departure
Mother, one day, responded with irritation—
ā€œTheir progeny has blossomed into adulthood
they’ve left the haven of the nest
bound to their mates
busy crafting a new abode afar.ā€

I rushed to Mother
clasped her in a tight embrace, and
with resolute tones, proclaimed,
ā€œMother! I’ll never make another home!
I’ll stay forever young!ā€

-ą„¦-
Note - This poem was originally written in Nepali language. This translation has been rendered by Suman Pokhrel, and  was first published in Grey Sparrow Journal.
..........................................................
I held myself to you,  
Desperate to fit to your curves  
And push myself into your gaps.  
I hid at your center
When you were mostly edges,  
Still filling in the spaces around you.  
All your pieces jumbled and piled together  
Waiting for you to dive into them  
And fit each fragment along your lines
Piecing together your parts.  

Each piece betraying me more.  
Calling me out as an imposter  
As I tried to hide my edges from you,  
Carve off my corners and make me round.  
Fearing as your shape emerged
You would realize I didn’t fit  
Within your borders,
Discarding me for a piece that did.  
And I i would see your puzzle  
Complete    
Without me.
Searched on every summit for lost elusive cures,
And for the alchemy.to make me feel I was pure.
I've violently torn through all that I am,
Begging every deity I’ve known for their hand.

There is no guidance.

What if healing doesn't surface, Cries muffled under sand.
A doctrine for the hopeful who will never understand.
My wounds still hold the daggers, unremoved.
What if pain protects the heart because it'll never be renewed?

There is no feeling.

Singing broken hymns inspires a hymn of praise.
Unspoken laws, maybe I'm an example being made.
I’m never broken; I can only wish to break with time.
I remain a quantum sonnet stripped of any rhyme.

There is no harmony.

Maybe there is grace that lives within a wilted plea.
In knowing, I’m exactly who I knew I’d always be.
A life pulling chains tethered to a hopeless mind.
What’s left within a soul, to see its purpose held divine.

There's nothing to believe.

Without residue of ash, from embers glow,
Haunted by the echoes, that have turned hearts to stone.
Our cold sweat of empathy for fellow misbegotten.
Stitched into the nerves of a body that is rotting.

There's nothing to see.

I cannot find belief in me for false restoration.
No longer a seeking of a hollowed-out salvation.
I walk with aching fractures to a rapture born in rust.
A fate I feel deep in my core, that all is made of dust.

There's no eternity.

What’s the meaning to the riddles I weave?
Is there truth in what remains, or is truth in what will leave?
As I stand, a withered body without a single plea.
I am all I ever was, all I know I'll ever be.

There's nothing to be.
Why my favorite coffee cup
You delight my soul
The roundness of your body
As you fill me with your taste
The texture of your glace
When I put you to my lips
And though I bought you In a shop
With money from my labour
I know you never
Truly
belong to me
Cadmus Apr 30
Something in me always waited
without knowing what for.
A quiet space, a missing piece,
like a song I half-remembered
but never heard before.

Then you came,
like sunlight sneaking into a closed room,
like warmth I didn’t know I’d missed
until I felt it on my skin.

You touched thoughts I’d never spoken.
You woke up parts of me I didn’t even know were asleep.
You didn’t arrive… you were always there,
like a voice behind my voice,
a feeling in my breath.

So stay close.
Because when you’re not near,
I feel myself searching
not for someone else,
but for the part of me
that only exists with you.
Lucky is the one who meets their matching other half, the one who feels like home in a world of strangers. Not everyone gets that kind of alignment, where two souls fit without force. When it happens, it’s nothing short of sacred.
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